AstraZeneca, Moderna Rise Premarket; Nikola Falls By Investing.com

By Peter Nurse 

Investing.com — Stocks in focus in premarket trade on Tuesday, March 16th. Please refresh for updates.

• AstraZeneca (NASDAQ:AZN) ADR rose 2.8% after Canada gave its approval for the drug maker’s Covid-19 vaccine to be used on its population aged 65 and over. Australia also said overnight it will proceed as planned with distributing the vaccine. This comes despite a number of European countries suspending their use of the vaccine over worries of blood clots. 

• Moderna (NASDAQ:MRNA) stock rose 3% after the drugmaker announced it has begun dosing children aged six months to less than 12 years in a mid-to-late stage study of its Covid-19 vaccine.

• Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) stock rose 0.3% after the social media giant reached a deal with News Corp (NASDAQ:NWSA), up 1.5%, over a content-supply deal in Australia, potentially ending a recent dispute.
• Alibaba (NYSE:BABA) ADR fell 0.9% after Reuters reported that the company’s UC web and smartphone browser has been removed from Chinese app stores, a day after it was criticized on Chinese state television’s annual consumer rights show.

• GameStop (NYSE:GME) stock fell 10%, continuing Monday’s slump, when trading on the stock was halted Monday due to its volatility.

• Tilray (NASDAQ:TLRY) stock rose 3.1%, Aphria (NASDAQ:APHA) stock rose 2.6% and Canopy Growth (NASDAQ:CGC) climbed 1.5% after Governor Andrew Cuomo said Monday that New York was “very close” to legalizing cannabis for recreational use.

• Nikola (NASDAQ:NKLA) stock fell 3.1% after the electric truck manufacturer announced a $100 million common stock offering in an SEC filing, to be used primarily to invest in funding the company’s Arizona manufacturing facility.

• Natwest (NYSE:NWG) stock fell 2.7% after Britain’s financial regulator launched criminal action against the bank over allegations it failed to detect suspicious activity by a customer depositing nearly 400 million pounds ($553 million) over five years, mostly in cash.

• Maxar Technologies (NYSE:MAXR) stock fell 3.4% after the space technology company announced a common stock offering of $400 million in an SEC filing.

• Fintech Acquisition Corp V (NASDAQ:FTCV) stock rose 10% after the special purpose acquisition company has agreed a deal to take public EToro, a rival of online brokerage Robinhood.